A New South Wales government review into a key Coalition policy has put the future of a major housing redevelopment proposal in Coffs Harbour in doubt.
Announced in 2016, the Future Directions for Social Housing policy was aimed at providing more social and affordable homes and better outcomes for tenants over a 10-year period.
But new Housing Minister Rose Jackson is not convinced it has delivered.
"Labor isn't committed to the Future Directions for Social Housing policy and assessment of it is being undertaken now," she said.
"It's pretty clear to me that it has not worked to deliver the level of social and affordable housing that we need."
The Argyll Estate rezoning proposal would see the existing estate of 127 public residences redeveloped into a mixed-density project providing close to 500 new homes.
There have been calls for more social housing to be included in the proposal because under the current regulations the project would only deliver a net increase of up to nine social homes.
If ways to increase that number cannot be found, the project may not go ahead.
"We are revisiting all of the estate redevelopments that were announced under that policy, including the Argyll Estate," Ms Jackson said.
"[We're] looking at ways that we might re-scope them to deliver more social and affordable housing and if that's not possible we probably won't proceed."
MP calls for speed
Coffs Harbour Nationals MP Gurmesh Singh, who has been involved in talks on the estate's development, says he fears the review will cause delays.
"There is a shortage of housing in Coffs Harbour and that is one of the few precincts that council have identified that can be rezoned relatively quickly," he said.
Mr Singh urged the new government to not treat the development like a large-scale project in Sydney, where land is fully in public hands.
"This is a council-led rezoning process and about half of the land in that area is state government-owned through the Land and Housing Corporation," he said.
Mr Singh said he backed efforts to improve the net increase of social dwellings for the estate.
"They'll have my support," he said.
"But what I don't want to see is for them to wait years and years and years for that funding to become available, and the homes in that estate, which are already quite old, don't get redeveloped in a timely manner."
Eager for outcomes
Long-time Argyll Street resident Tihema Elliston said the review would come as a relief to her and her neighbours.
Ms Elliston, who ran at the recent NSW election in Coffs Harbour for the Legalise Cannabis Party, said most residents she spoke with were opposed to multi-storey development.
"There's a lot of us [who have] been here a long time, some of us longer than me, and we've all these families here," she said.
"If we were downgraded to these two-bedroom or one-bedroom apartments, we lose that connection, and we rely on that."
Ms Elliston wants to see more dwellings in the estate and believes a significant outcome can be reached through low to medium-density housing.
"Those [spaces] could be more suited for duplexes to be built — not multi-stories, but the suitable and adequate space that is needed," she said.
"I definitely agree something needs to be done and we can do something here, but just not the narrative that was projected upon us."
